Abstract
Humans make judgments and comparisons. They especially compare to determine which human characteristic or act is best and which is worst. These comparative judgments, if not unavoidable, often guide action and policy. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) sort out accident victims according to triage principles, attending to the most critically injured first. They treat unconscious victims before those victims with less severe injuries.
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Notes
William Schabas, Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 452.
See Alison Palmer, “Ethnocide” in Genocide in Our Time, eds. Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Walliman, chap. 1 (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press, 1992).
Thomas W. Simon, The Laws of Genocide: Prescription for a Just World (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007): 56.
Etymology provides a further important clue for finding the basics of a genocide act. Given the word’s derivation from the Latin caedere (“to kill”), whatever else genocide encompasses, it should include the act of killing. Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2006): 8.
James Alan Fox and Jack Levin, Overkill: Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed (New York: Plenum Press, 1994), 201–206.
Thomas. W. Simon, “Defining Genocide,” Wisconsin International Law Journal 15 (1996): 248.
Nina H.B. Jorgensen, The Responsibility Of States For International Crimes, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 112.
Philip L. Reichel, Comparative Criminal Justice Systems (Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012), 72.
William A. Schabas, “State Policy as an Element of International Crimes,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 98 (2008): 966—67.
Alexander K. A. Greenwalt, “Rethinking Genocidal Intent: The Case for Knowledge-Based Interpretation,” Columbia Law Review 99 (1999): 2284–88.
Kai Ambos, “What Does “Intent to Destroy” in Genocide Mean?” International Review of Red Cross 91 (2009): 834–35.
See Thomas W. Simon, “A Theory of Disadvantaged Groups,” in Democracy and Social Injustice (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 71–107.
As quoted in Merle Hoffman, “I Am Against Fanatics,” in On Prejudice: A Global Perspective, ed. Daniela Gioseffi (New York: Anchor, 1993), 549.
George J. Andreopoulos, “Introduction: The Calculus of Genocide,” Genocide: Conceptualand Historical Dimensions, ed. George J. Andreopoulos (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 1.
Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 83.
Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 56.
George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! Or Slaves Without Masters, ed. C. Vann Woodward (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1960, 1988).
Laurence Thomas, “Characterizing the Evil of American Slavery and the Holocaust,” in Jewish Identity, eds. David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993), 153–76, 172.
R. J. Rummel, “The Holocaust in Comparative and Historical Perspective,” Paper delivered to the Conference on “The ‘Other’ as a Threat: Demonization and Antisemistism,” June 12–15, 1995 at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ronald Gossop, Confronting War: An Examination of Humanity’s Most Pressing Problem, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 1987), 7.
Eric Markusen, “Genocide and Modern War,” in Genocide in Our Time, eds. Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Walliman (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press, 1992), 122.
Irving Louis Horowitz, Taking lives: Genocide and State Power, 3nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1982), 1–2.
Cf. “I cannot accept the view that … the bombing, in time of war, of such civilian enemy populations as those of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hamburg, and Dresden does not constitute genocide within the terms of the [UN] convention.” Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (New York: Penguin Books, 1981). Kuper cites the following estimates of deaths from Allied pattern bombings: In Dresden at least 40,000 people were killed; in Hamburg 40,000; and in Tokyo as many as 130,000 were victims.
Leo Kuper, “Theoretical Issues Relating to Genocide: Uses and Abuses,” in Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions, ed. George J. Andreopoulos (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 35.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 160.
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Simon, T.W. (2016). Comparing Wrongs. In: Genocide, Torture, and Terrorism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137415110_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137415110_2
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